Far Too Good For Ordinary People

Part of the fun of the tea business is the names. The names of the teas themselves are wonderful — from classics like Iron Goddess of Mercy to house blends like Mr. Excellent’s Post-Apocalyptic Earl Grey — but the industry terminology is fun as well. Let’s take the “orange pekoe” grading system used for black teas from Sri Lanka (Ceylon) and India.

I can’t count the number of times someone has come into the tea bar telling me they like flavored teas. “You know, something like that Orange Pekoe stuff.”

“Actually,” I have to explain, “that’s not a style of tea, but a grade. And it has no flavorings at all. Nope. No orange in it.”

What I generally don’t go on to explain is how that whole pekoe grading system works. Let’s start with the words “orange” and “pekoe.” A pekoe is a tea bud, the unopened leaf at the very tip of a branch. A pekoe tea, then, would contain the buds and smallest leaves adjacent to the buds. To further confuse matters, the word “pekoe” in grading tea doesn’t mean quite the same thing as it means when speaking of tea buds. We’ll get to that in a moment.

“Orange,” as I mentioned above, has nothing to do with fruit. What it does actually mean is open to debate. It could refer to the color of the oxidized leaves. It could refer to the color of the brewed tea. It could refer to the Dutch royal family (the House of Orange). All that really matters is that in tea grading, any whole-leaf black tea qualifies as an Orange Pekoe.

So what about all those other letters? The joke in the tea business is that FTGFOP stands for “Far Too Good For Ordinary People.” In reality, it stands for “Fine (or Finest) Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe.” Referring to a grade of tea as the “finest” isn’t good enough, of course, so there are actually several grades above that. Here are the basic grades:

For the true connoisseur, a grading system can never have fine enough gradations, so you can also elevate each of these grades another half-point by adding the number “1” after it. Thus, despite the industry joke, there are three grades of tea better than FTGFOP (FTGFOP-1, SFTGFOP, and SFTGFOP-1).

Let me reinforce an important point here: this grading system is used only for black teas, and only in a few countries. China, for example, rarely grades its teas using this system, although Kenya is doing more of it as their teas increase in quality.

Are there lower grades?

I thought you’d never ask.

The majority of tea consumed in the U.S. and U.K. is in teabags. In a traditional teabag, there’s little room for the hot water to circulate or the leaves to expand as they absorb water. The solution? Break those leaves into smaller pieces. That exposes more of the surface area of the leaf to water and allows more tea (by weight) to fit into a smaller area.

OP-grade teas use whole leaves. There is a series of grades below OP that include the letter B for “Broken.” BOP (Broken Orange Pekoe), FBOP, GBOP, and so on. There are also a couple of broken grades below BOP, including BP (Broken Pekoe) and BT (Broken Tea).

So that’s what’s used in teabags? Nope. Let’s drop another grade.

After the processing facility has sorted out all of the Pekoe and Broken Pekoe grades, what’s left is known as “fannings.” Grades like PF (Pekoe Fannings), FOF (Flowery Orange Fannings), and TGFOF (Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Fannings). These are the grades used in most decent-quality teabags (high-end teabags may use whole-leaf teas, typically in a sachet-style bag).

The smallest-sized particles of tea — too small to be fannings — are called “dust.” There are different grades of dust, of course, depending on the tea leaves they come from. You may encounter PD (Pekoe Dust), GD (Golden Dust), FD (Fine Dust), and others. Typically, though, grades like that don’t make it onto commercial packaging.

So these lower grades suck?

No, I didn’t say that.

Fannings from an extraordinary tea will produce a much better drink than whole leaves from a mediocre tea. There are a lot of factors to take into consideration, but the number one factor is your own preferences. As I’ve said before on this blog, I’m not a tea Nazi. It won’t hurt my feelings a bit if you prefer the cheapest grade of Lipton teabags to my shop’s whole-leaf FTGFOP-1 First Flush Darjeeling. In fact, it would be quite a waste of money to buy a tea you don’t like.

In a way, buying tea that’s highly-graded on the pekoe system is like buying organic. What it really tells you is that you’re dealing with a legitimate tea producer that cares enough about their product to pick it right and have it graded by experts.

I agree almost completely with you (Somebody has to play the Devil’s Advocate part 😎 ).

Loose leaf vs teabag is an old subject. Every “tea nazi” (I love the term) in this world would agree that teabags are something emanated from the darkest bottoms of hell and his use should be punished by burning the heretical drinker publicly in the town square while prayin for forgiveness to the gods of sacred tea.

Well… my humble opinion (and, so far, only mine) is that comparing loose leaf tea and tea-bagged tea is like comparing a 4wd pickup and a sports convertible car… both can be similar but they are different products.

I prefer talking about “industrial” and “non-industrial” teas. The word “industrial” has to do with mecanisation, and standarisation… but that is not intrinsically good or bad. Industrial products, if well designed and manufactured, can hold an acceptable quality standard. Even more, they can be the best solution in certain situations.

I love having my loose leaf Lapsang Souchong or my raw pu-ehr cup in the afternoon or at mid-morning on weekends… but I also need something sturdy and strong to go with my breakfast or in my morning break in the office, where neither I can not spare the time nor having the necessary utensils. A teabag is out of place in a zen ceremony, a teapot and loose leaves are out of place in a fast food stall in the street. (Note: one of the best cuppas I remember in England was in one of theses stalls in Skegness… from a teabag and in a paper cup… there are no rules for the best cup… sometimes is a matter of chance).

Industrial teas -mostly bagged but also loose leaf (small pieces… but loose)- have lots of engineering behind them. But they have some qualities that I appreciate. They are “standard” -uniform- but this can be an advantage too: you know exactly what you are going to get. They are designed to produce “something drinkable” for the impatient drinker and a “drinkable tea” for those absent minded “over-steepers”. They are a sort of jack of all trades that can match decently with a wide range of companions, from scrambled eggs to cupcakes… and of course… as “as any british housemaid knows” (quoted) the remains have to be disposed cleanly -bags to the trash bin or leaves through the kitchen sink drain-.

Of course there are good and bad industrial teas… but there are also good and bad loose leaf teas. There are also good teas brewed with poor quality water, mediocre teas handled by someone skillful…

What I do not like are the “neither flesh nor fish solutions”. To me things like pyramids and infuser balls are a bad solution. I think that it is impossible to have the comfort of the teabag and the pleasures of loose leaf in a half way solution. Nice loose leaves are meant to have their space in water… the can not be constricted in a bag or a ball. It’s a sin!!!

You can ask me about teabags… well… teabag tea is designed to be put inside a bag… lovely orthodox leaves are not… so… please don’t.

Teabags are like Budweiser beer and Jack-in-the-Box hamburgers: They are completely consistent and you know exactly what you’re getting, but they carry all of the other hallmarks of inexpensive mass-produced food items. If I am in a restaurant and I want a cup of tea, I will drink something from a teabag rather than giving up and drinking water. Teabags absolutely have their place, and I have two shelves of them in my tea shop.